It is often necessary to take biological samples, such as tissue or blood, from humans or animals to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases or disorders. Such diseases include skin cancer, inflammatory diseases and infectious diseases, such as mosquito-borne diseases.
Skin cancer currently accounts for 80% of all newly diagnosed cancers, with over 10,300 melanoma cases per year and a combined death toll of 1,850 people per year in Australia alone.
The current standard of care for diagnosing skin cancer is to take a biopsy of the lesion for histological evaluation. However, this is often challenging when patients present with high numbers of lesions which require evaluation.
There are three main types of biopsy: 1) shave biopsy, where section of superficial (2-3 mm deep) skin is removed; 2) conventional punch biopsy, where a circular cutting tool is used to remove 2-4 mm skin pieces up to several millimeters deep; and 3) excision biopsy, the use of a scalpel to remove entire lesion or an area of abnormal skin including a small area of normal skin.
In each case, the amount of tissue removed is significant: such as a width in the order of a few millimeters. In addition, the biopsy operation may require more than one step: in the case of a punch biopsy, the “core” of skin created by the punch must be raised using tweezers or a needle and it must then be cut from the underlying tissue. Moreover, the risks involved in a biopsy procedure can include bleeding, pain, local reaction to the anaesthetic, infection and scarring. These risks multiply with every mole or lesion requiring evaluation.
With regard to diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, the frequency of human infections is predicted to increase due to climate change and increased population density. Determining which pathogen is causing an outbreak can be difficult and dangerous, because this traditionally requires blood samples from the ill. Therefore, there is a risk of needle injuries, need for a cold chain to detect infectious pathogens and risks due to the often high level biosafety requirements of these agents.
There is accordingly a need for a biopsy system that overcomes, or at least alleviates one or more of the disadvantages of the prior art.